How Paul Ryan's ideas went mainstream in House GOP

Rep. Paul Ryan, the affable Wisconsin Republican congressman turned vice presidential candidate, has spent countless hours turning political toxicity into governing reality — leaving some lawmakers who embraced his ideas in the dust, but managing to make even more members of Congress comfortable with his drastic plans to rejigger the nation’s entitlement structure.

From the Philadelphia suburbs to California, House Republicans once skeptical of his far-reaching ideas to transform the federal government over time acclimated to Ryan’s thinking — even voting for his plans twice on the House floor, despite the obvious political risk.

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May '12: Ryan asked about VP

Ryan won them over the hard way: With hours of self-education in budgetary minutia in a small office on the first floor of the Capitol. He used that knowledge to make himself into an intellectual guidepost for congressional Republicans, who can have trouble looking beyond the next vote, let alone the next election.

“He knows the process and how government works better than anybody on Capitol Hill,” his fellow Budget Committee Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said after the Ryan selection became public early Saturday morning. “He understands budget, appropriations and entitlements better than anybody else in town. He’s got superior knowledge and that translates to good governance.”

But even more than practical Washington knowledge — which Ryan certainly has — he will energize House Republicans, a base long skeptical of Mitt Romney, whom they saw as tepid and a bit too moderate for their tastes.

“For conservatives, this is heaven,” said Chaffetz, one of Romney’s earliest endorsers. “This is a great ticket. You have a combination of some serious minds to tackle the biggest of problems. This country needs a turnaround, and I can think of nobody better than Romney-Ryan to do it.”

But there are sure to be doubters — not least among some within House Republican leadership. There’s a significant pocket of aides and lawmakers within the top rungs of leadership who think Ryan’s selection is detrimental to House Republicans. Outside groups — mainly super PACs and their affiliated organizations — have recently received polling that showed the Ryan budget was lethal to their political prospects.

So in close races across the country, Republican candidates are taking pains to stay away from the budget chairman’s plan, which would overhaul Medicare. Democrats have gleefully seized on it as a political winner for their party. When the plan came to the House floor earlier this year, 10 Republicans joined all Democrats to oppose the proposal.

Readers' Comments (25)

Towards the end of the Clinton administration, the federal government had a surplus and was beginning to pay down the national debt. This was accomplished through bi-partisan cooperation in Congress and the administration.

Then we had the Bush jr. tax cuts and the surplus went away and then we got into two wars and we began to have huge deficits. Then in 2007 the global economy went over a cliff and things kept getting worse for the U.S. through much of 2009. Since then, the economy has been growing slowly but many nations of the world are still suffering and that has impacted our economy.

My point is this: Before the economy hit the fan, funding Medicare was not a problem and in fact, the government had a surplus. The national debt was being paid off. I do not see why Republicans focus on programs, such as Medicare, when they want to balance the budget.

As they focus on Medicare they also promote maintaining the largest military in the world and being the policeman of the world. During the primaries, Romney advocated war with Iran. We are still in Afghanistan and only recently got out of Iraq and this guy is looking for another fight.

When we try to "fix" other countries, we get our young men and women killed and wounded, we spend billions and in the end, we end up with budget deficits. We do not get the appreciation of the world and in the end, these countries we try to fix end up doing what they were going to do anyway.

If you want to balance the budget, stop being the policeman of the world, reduce the of the military and begin to take care of our own people. I am sick and tired of our nation butting its nose in the business of others and then turning around and saying, we cannot take care of our own people.

Paul Ryan is going to stick it to more than the retired. You can bet on that.

Wonderful choice for a VP. Finally, we'll have a couple of guys heading an administration that not only knows how to write a budge, but how to balance it too.

Of course, all the leftist wackos in the partisan mainstream news media will be coming out with all kinds of lies and slanders against him - just as they are now accusing Romney of being a felon, a murderer, a tax cheat, and who knows what else based on nothing but their deviant imaginations. But they would do that no matter who Romney picked.

The Obama campaign has reached new lows in terms of its lies, its slander, and the depth to which it has sunk into the gutter. I can't understand how anyone would want four more years of the chaos, the division, the incivility, the economic malais and the loss of persoanl rights that this administration has visited on the people of the United States. Perhaps someone can explain for me what Obama has done in the past four years that they want to see four more years of.

Paul Ryan the great climate change denier during the hottest year on record with devastating droughts, medicare destroyer has been anointed by the Koch Bros to be Mitt's running mate. Money does buy you government. Congrats.

Paul Ryan is a thoroughgoing fraud. He went through high school and most of college on Social Security survivor benefits after his father's death. He voted for almost all the Bush programs — including both off-the-books wars — that ballooned the deficit he so piously condemns now. And this week, as he rolled out his lunatic conception of a federal budget, Paul Ryan produced the definitive statement of his political philosophy: There are those Americans who deserve to live and those Americans who don't. Period. All of the former are very, very wealthy. All of the latter are poor, or struggling, or old.

Ryan's plan would save Social Security and Medicare. He led a serious detailed approach to the budget process. He has specific plans for managing the nations financial difficulties. Reid will have to get busy and put together an alternative budget. Reid's failure to even present a budget proposal has frustrated those Americans who want to have a serious debate about how to manage the nations budget. Unfortunately the Presidents plan was unanimously voted down by both the House and Senate. America deserves a serious comparison between budget alternatives. Reid must present a budget proposal if he has one.

America is tired of last minute special interest dominated budgets that are passed behind closed doors.

Andy Russell, Harry Reid is in the Senate. All bills of revenue begin in the House of Representatives. So I'm wondering, why should Harry Reid present a budget proposal. Isn't that the job of the House?

Next year a UNITED America will begin to implement the changes needed to save our entitlement programs starting with the Bi-Partisan Ryan Wyden plan: 12/15/2011 @ 2:36PM |5,578 views Ron Wyden and Paul Ryan's Bipartisan Plan for Health Care and Medicare Reform

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.). Image by Getty Images via @daylife

This morning, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) have shaken up Capitol Hill with an intriguing, bipartisan plan for reforming Medicare, and also the private-sector employer-sponsored insurance system. Politically, the plan is a huge boost to Mitt Romney, whose own remarks on Medicare reform hew closely to Wyden-Ryan; and also to House Republicans, who now have an easy retort to Democrats who were planning to attack Medicare reformers in the 2012 campaign. Substantively, the plan has many encouraging qualities, but there are also some important blanks that Wyden and Ryan will need to fill in.

Well now we can have a real debate and Americans can see a realistic plan to save and preserve our safety nets, by simple things like means testing, and introducing patient choice and competition for Medicares dollars. The Democrats will have a hard time trying to blast the Ryan plan, reasonable realistic solutions that preserve the program vs the do nothing and watch the program go bankrupt and take the nation with it Greece style implosion they would have us follow. It's easy to demonize, it's hard to lead. Democrats take the easy rout, and do nothing, while blasting those with the courage to offer solutions. Ask yourself a very important question is that the best path forward for America, or is it time to get serious about the problems we all know we face? Kicking the can down the road is not an option any longer it's time to punish those who have us follow that path.

The democrats haven't produced a budget in over 1,000 days, they've had Congress since 2006, Republicans just getting the House back in 2011, Congress controls the purse strings, and they've blown a six trillion dollar hole in the debt in just the last four years. They have no plan to stave off the coming fiscal cliff, yet demonize someone with the courage to offer realistic solutions like means testing and introducing competition and patient choice into Medicare. How can people support this? How can you push for four more years without a budget, for another 6 trillion in debt, or no plan for medicare or the coming fiscal cliff? You just plan to wing it or what? How do you then attack adults actually putting forward ideas? I just don't understand how the Democrat muster much support at all?

The propagandists of the Obama Campaign will now demonstrate their complete lack of moral integrity by embracing the strategies of a man who would subjugate a entire Continent!

The Obama Campaign will make the lies Big! - they will make them simple! - and they will repeat them often!

Lies and Innuendo will be their stock and trade - Gutter politics at its most base will be their modus operandi - Propaganda that America intuitively knows to be false, and a narrative that continues to abandon the traditional vision of America for some darker and deconstructed version that only Hugo Chavez would call “transformational”.

The more Obama talks - the more America tunes out! It has finally reached a point where America realizes that the White House no longer embraces a credible narrative - that Obama’s rhetoric fails to match reality!

The blatant hypocrisy of the Obama Campaign is only surpassed by their own Lies and Political Expediency!